Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Hard Drive life expentency

Jun 29, 2006 11:40AM PDT

Hello,
We have been recording (voice and music) on 90 mins tape for the last 12 years.

I am looking to create a digital library (covert all those tapes on MP3).

I am wondering on wich support to keep that library.

One hard drive a year and a copy on another location.
Copy the MP3 on a DVD.
Copy the MP3 on DSS (DAT) tape.

What is the life expentency of each support.

My first idea was to store on Hard Drive but last week I dropped one of mine in its external casing and the drive broke (I had almost had everything on backup but I lost a month of recording). So now I am unsure how I should procede.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Link, comment.
Jun 29, 2006 9:55PM PDT

Just discussed at http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7813-0.html?forumID=6&threadID=185344&messageID=2017489

Your comment of "My first idea was to store on Hard Drive but last week I dropped one of mine in its external casing and the drive broke (I had almost had everything on backup but I lost a month of recording). So now I am unsure how I should procede." is telling me you don't have a backup system. Or even a second copy. No matter which system you used, without a second copy none will satisfactory.

"I am wondering on wich support to keep that library."

Before I comment further, said library must have a backup system.


"One hard drive a year and a copy on another location."

Seems to be OK. When one fails you toss it, get new and clone the copy again. CHEAP, big storage. Pretty fast but no write protection means that if the user errored or some virus did it in that the same fate awaits the second copy. Where's the write protection?

"Copy the MP3 on a DVD."

Here's the care, handling document: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/
Here's the lifespan document: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/05/0024258


"Copy the MP3 on DSS (DAT) tape."

The only downside here is that DAT tape and readers are not widely available. It's not something I'd consider today.

Bob

- Collapse -
herald_thomas (repost without email address)
Jun 30, 2006 1:07AM PDT

herald_thomas writes,

If you have a computer, then you can add an internal hard drive to store the music files. Please change the file permissons for it.

Step 1: Set Permissions
==========================

1) Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer.

2) Locate the file or folder for which you want to set permissions.

3) Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

4) Click the name of the group or user.

5) In Permissions, click Allow for each permission you want to allow.

further you may also give it read-only rights, so that no one else deletes it.

Step 1: Rread-only
==========================

1) Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer.

2) Locate the file or folder for which you want to remove read-only.

3) Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the General tab.

4) Ccheck the options "Read-only"

Now you have stored the files, but we should always maintain a back-up of all our important files.

To maintain backup, I would suggest you to write the contents to a CD. CDs are more durable than DVDs. However DVDs hold much more data.